Engineering and manufacturing industries

When the lines go down: in a national emergency in the United States, organizations in affected areas will unite to repair or, at least, minimize damage

Article Abstract:

The nation's telecommunications infrastructure is evolving rapidly, and this circumstance affects planning for national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP). Industry and government must cooperate to see that NS/EP workers, who rely on telecommunications both for warning of a disaster and for help in responding to one, remain adequately advised. Unlike the situation in many other countries, where the government often assumes the entire burden of managing telecommunications, many groups are involved here. Service suppliers, equipment manufacturers, systems integrators, legislators, regulators and users are all involved in creating an infrastructure in the US. Moreover, standards-setting bodies in the US typically represent industry interests, which are not necessarily the same as NS/EP interests. At the national level, the National Communications System (NCS), which consists of 23 Federal-agency members and a Manager, oversees NS/EP, and the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) works with industry to coordinate matters that relate to NS/EP. Readiness is a key to reliability and responsiveness, and preparations often will involve arrangements built into the infrastructure, such as seismic designs built into facilities in California, where earthquakes are common.

The great blue box phone frauds

Article Abstract:

In 1971 the Bell System succeeded in the arrest of 25 black box users. In 1972 Bell won a court order suppressing the Jun 1972 issue of Ramparts magazine, which contained detailed instructions for the construction of a black box. Later in 1972 fourteen middle- to upper-class businessmen in US cities had their boxes confiscated by federal government authorities. Sophisticated monitoring equipment was used to check for fraud; stored program control switching systems were used for security procedures. Common channel interoffice signaling (CCIS) offered the permanent solution to the box fraud. CCIS puts signaling information on a separate routing network and lines between toll centers, instead of transmitting it with the voice signal. With CCIS, customers cannot reroute their own calls; the control signaling for the network is outside the conversation band.

A continent bound by wire

Article Abstract:

The IEEE placed a plaque on an obelisk in Fort Laramie, WY, on Aug 5, 1990, to commemorate the construction of the first transcontinental telegraph. The obelisk also honors the Pony Express, which was put out of business by the new telegraph. Fort Laramie was used as a way station by both services. The Pony Express existed for only 18 months before a single galvanized wire established direct communications between the east and west coasts of the US.